Brazil Launches Measures to Boost Coffee Prices

Government Will Buy Up Supply as Bumper Crop Is Expected

Brazil will buy arabica coffee beans to help prop up coffee growers' incomes as prices languish, President Dilma Rousseff said Wednesday.

The purchases will be made through two programs. In one, the government will offer growers options contracts to sell as many as three million 60-kilogram (132-pound) bags of coffee at 343 reais ($149) per bag, the president said. The contracts will have a delivery date in March 2014, she said.